Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of post press processing. It concerns a collating apparatus according to the preamble to Claim 1. It further concerns a method for operating such a collating apparatus.
Discussion of Related Art
Already familiar for some time under the heading “Direct Mailing” are activities in which advertising leaflets, brochures, flyers, printed sheets and the like, which are usually frequently included (inserted) for advertising purposes as enclosures in a newspaper, are collected from a number of originators, in order to produce a plurality of compilations therefrom, which respectively contain a printed product from each originator and are delivered or distributed in the form of a small stack to the recipients, e.g. households.
In order to be able to handle the individual stack-like compilations of the printed products more effectively during transport and distribution, it is advantageous to take measures to keep the individual stacks together.
It is familiar from the prior art, in the event that one of the printed products is folded, to open this printed product and to insert the other printed products into the opened printed product.
This is performed in practice by hand by those persons who distribute the compilations in the areas allocated to them. For this purpose, the individual printed products are delivered to particular locations in the form of packed stacks. The stacks must then be unpacked by hand, and the printed products must be removed individually from the various stacks and united to produce the desired compilation.
It is self-evident that, although forming of the compilations by hand by the persons involved in their distribution does not involve any equipment costs, it is nevertheless extraordinarily time-consuming, particularly when large quantities are to be distributed, and it greatly delays the distribution process and gives rise to additional personnel costs.
It may accordingly be financially more advantageous under certain circumstances to execute the forming and provision of the compilations centrally and by machine, and to provide the persons responsible for their distribution with the finished compilations.
The above-mentioned insertion process, in which a folded printed product is opened and the other printed products are inserted into the opened printed product, nevertheless calls for considerable investment in machinery.
It is conceivable, on the other hand, to hold the compilation of printed products together by placing an adhesive or non-adhesive strip laterally around one edge of the compilation. Such a technology is familiar to the applicant, e.g. from WO 2012/084464 A2 or from WO 2012/084494 A2.
Familiar from EP 2 107 023 A1, furthermore, is a method for generating a stream of flat products, in particular printed products, in a predetermined sequence, the products arriving from a number of feed flows being dispensed in a controlled manner in a plurality of delivery positions lying one after the other along at least one grouping section on at least one conveyor moving continuously along a closed circulation path and being moved to a further processing station. Only those products whose sequence corresponds to the predetermined sequence are transferred to the further processing station, the dispensing of new products from the feed flows to the conveyor being interrupted following detection of a fault, without interrupting the movement of the conveyor, the partial stream present on the conveyor being fed back to the grouping section at least from a fault location corresponding to the fault, and the fault being corrected by the delivery of the corresponding product or the corresponding products.
Familiar from WO 2011/144451 A1 is a post press processing installation for combining and further processing of flat precursors, which comprises a combining apparatus having a conveyor track, on which a plurality of receiving units arranged one after the other in the revolving direction in order to receive precursors to be combined circulates in a closed system, and on which a number of feed devices are arranged one after the other in the revolving direction in at least one combining zone, from which precursors are dispensed into the receiving units as they move past on the conveyor track. A transfer device is arranged along at least one point on the conveyor track, which transfers combined first partial collections from the receiving units for further processing. A collator is arranged at least at one further point on the conveyor track or at a distance therefrom, which collates combined further partial collections from the receiving units with the first partial collections, or combines the first partial collection comprising printed products into collections.
There is a desire, on the other hand, to create an apparatus with which individual printed products can be collated, in a predetermined and at all times variable manner, into compilations and can be made ready for distribution rapidly, flexibly and with reduced equipment costs.